It wasn’t the “Thomas Church” garden out back nor the pizza oven inside which caught our attention. It was something else.
Purchased for $800,000 in 1992 and transferred to a trust in 2000, the single-family Presidio Heights home at 3346 Clay Street was refinanced in 2001 with a $1,350,000 variable rate note.
On February 5, 2010 the property was listed on the MLS asking $3,295,000, a listing which was withdrawn on March 24. In between, the property appears to have been sold to “Hale Alii LLC” on February 24, yet three days ago the Presidio Heights home suddenly returned to the MLS as a short sale at $2,895,000 noting “time is of the essence.”
And perhaps it’s simply a coincidence, but the seller in February just so happens to share the same name as a resident in Hawaii who resides on Hale Alii Place.
UPDATE: In the words of a plugged-in reader, “Also of note is the Trustee Sale [scheduled for 8/19] … hence, time is in fact of the essence.”
UPDATE: The Missing Links (Or Rather Notes) for 3346 Clay.
∙ Listing: 3346 Clay (3/2) 3,009 sqft – $2,895,000 [3346clay.com] [MLS]
∙ The Missing Links (Or Rather Notes) for 3346 Clay.
Apropos of anonee’s point that $800/sqft is hardly a sign of doom I give you … the 3 million dollar short sale.
SF is expensive. SF has always been expensive. SF will always be expensive. Even if prices fell 50% from peak it would still be expensive.
That SF is expensive and will remain so does not mean it will not correct.
add $1 mm for a complete redo and this is even more expensive than meets the eye. went to the open house. it’s a tiny house and a total dump.
what really caught my attention was the use of various ugly carpets and tile….
If this is a tiny dump, they must be including the garage in that 3000sqft figure.
That’s Thomas Church in the backyard? Wow, it’s certainly not GOOD Thomas Church. And that interior is mostly FUGLY. (IMHO) I don’t know how they get to the 3000 square feet, but there is clearly quite a lot of living space on the ground floor…can’t tell if that’s directly behind the garage or up a level.
I think contractor and I have different views of what constitutes “tiny” and “total dump”.
While this place ain’t exactly my taste (a little too much use of mirrors and gold hardware), it’s 3000sqft and seems to be in excellent condition.
Saw this come on over the weekend but couldn’t make it to the OH. It is on tour tomorrow? Some really odd finishes in this home; especially dislike the fireplace surrounds and their rounded corners. But $200k would sort a lot of the problems with this home. Not sure where contractor is seeing the $1M required to change out easy finishes. It looks pretty nice. This is going to be a pretty interesting situation / comp for the market. 2430 Scott at 888 psf now seems like a decent deal all of a sudden. This place at 850 = $2.55 and I would be surprise dto see it sell for that low, but it a possible outcome. If the bank is willing to set the market on this home, I’m predicting closer to 875 psf or $2.6 – 2.7.
Also of note is the Trustee Sale of 8/19 … hence, time is in fact of the essence.
They bought the place for 1.3 and then pulled over 1.6 more out in cash (It’s a short sale at 2.9)?
Maybe they put $500K into it in the form of a remodel, but with the extra 1.1+Mil, you basically could have had no income at all for the last 5 years, making the payments, and all your living expenses, on the cash out.
You can really see how nearly every financial problem in SF was completely skirted by SF homeowners. But that only lasts so long. All of the problems of the last 5-10 years are about to hit us all at once. Wow.
Fugly interior, I think it will be north of the 200K eddy; all bathrooms, kitchen, landscaping, etc. will need to be done.
Given the state of the transaction, maybe the realator should have included Goodbyes in the neighborhood photos.
tipster, I thought the $1.3M purchasers sold to this LLC, and that it’s the LLC doing the short sale now? Or is the LLC just a holding company of the original owners/their trust? Not clear to me from the post.
Oh my! If they want to sell this place they really need to empty out the furniture and maybe remove a few mirrors. I’m always amazed at what can be behind the front doors in Presidio Heights.
must be quite the narcissists with those mirrored walls
Shza,
There is no price associated with the transfer, which on Propertyshark, usually means it was just a transfer among the same entity. And as the editor noted, the former owner also appears to be the owner of the LLC.
I’m hardly the expert in such things, but it looks like the owner might be trying to shield his credit rating from the foreclsoure. Maybe he’s hoping that because the foreclosure won’t have his name as the owner, the credit reporting services won’t pick it up as being his problem?
Oops, I missed the paragraph at the end of the editor’s post re the name of the LLC, etc. Thanks.
Attended the open house. Did anyone else find the irony in the “Parking for Ferrari’s Only” sign on the back porch. The owner should have been less concerned about his image and more concerned about his checkbook. Anyone who saw this open house yesterday would agree, the place is nasty and needs a complete redo. The photos are gorgeous… buyer beware.
Saw it over the weekend and the house is ugly, gloomy, and dark. It needs a lot of updating and there is no dining room. No thanks for 3M. Obviously the guy who owned it is a big spender, with Ferrari memorabilia all over the house. No shortage of ego either..his name is carved onto the wine celler door, and there is a giant “B” embossed on the front gate. No thanks to bailing him out of the real estate hole he’s dug for himself, either.
Houses in financial distress in this price range are obviously a challenge to sell. If there is a clear title, I would guess this would go for 2.5ish considering the poor condition of the property; but given there are all sorts of issues and liens and whatnot, any potential buyer is going to have their lawyers take a careful look at this. And that takes time, something the current owner clearly does not have.
changing titled owner and who the mortgage belongs to are two mutually exclusive things. the lender doesn’t give a damn how owns it – if you haven’t settled with them they still want their money from you. and if the lien on the home wasn’t removed they can still go after the property. changing titled owner won’t change the lenders lien unless that’s part of the transfer and the lender agrees
Yea, pretty tacky interiors and finishes. Kitchen is cheap suburban..Back yard is gonna be shady and gloomy most of the year, being north facing.
I’d like to see documentation that the garden was, in fact, by Thomas Church…hmmm…seems fishy.
over priced too.
UPDATE: How can a Presidio Heights house that was purchased for $800,000 in 1992 and refinanced in 2001 with a $1,350,000 note end up listed as a short sale at $2,895,000 in 2010? When it’s refinanced in 2006 with a $2,800,000 adjustable rate first mortgage and a second for $1,188,024 is added in October 2008 (neither of which are noted on PropertyShark).
As correctly surmised, the transfer in title this past February to an LLC was recorded without consideration (i.e., no money changed hands). And while the Notice of Default on 3346 Clay was filed in April with just over $53,000 past due at the time, the Notice of Trustee sale lists $3,138,115 in principal, interest and fees outstanding on the first note alone.
Is that a pot-filler sink? (you know, the one that looks oval-shaped in one picture and circular in the other)
I hope this guy rots, hopefully the bank doesnt agree to some ridiculously low short sale, this is exactly the BS that has the market in this state, suck everything out of the place, reep the rewards but if the value goes down just short sell it and move one, what other investments are people allowed to simply walk on if “it doesnt work out”. and he deserves to lose for this terribly ugly remodel too, what a waste of money
WOW. I wonder how much of that was cash-out and how much of that went into this terrible remodel.
Blah.. it’s just a street in the Richmond district.
You can get a few Ferraris for $2.5M in free money.
Ghastly. And what’s with all those clocks? The giant “B” embossed on the front gate is kind of reminiscent of the infamous “G” Same lack of taste.
Hole? Hell, he’s cashed in on the joint. Paid $800K for it, admittedly a healthy sum in ’92 but hey, and has pulled $5.3M out of it in the past ten years. Now he’s just going to toss the keys at the bank. Lovely. Yeah, I just weep for his poor credit rating. Wah.
Even assuming that first second was rolled into that second first, it’s still four mil in pocket. Cry me a river.
I don’t know that I feel too sorry for the bank though. Dumbasses.
And yeah, it ticks me off that we’re all going to pay for this clown’s free money.
Seconds are recourse, though, are they not? At least maybe the bank can get some of its money back.
Technically, under California law, a refi becomes a recourse loan too. However, this is based on old case law, and it’s possible that a judge may determine that a refi is only recourse to the extent it exceeds the original value of the purchase money loan.
It certainly makes sense from a fairness standpoint that “cash-outs” should be recourse.
It looks like this guy knows what he is doing and seems to have connections to a few Real Estate Trusts:
Ban-Jackson Investments LLC
Trophy Properties Xv LLC
Marina Bay Partners LP
Baner-Los Robles Investments
Bancal Property Management
Baner Financial Interests, Inc
It looks like he just got wiped out in San Mateo (unless this was also a shrewd investment move):
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=134262&title=Bank
“The project cost a total of $67 million with a consortium of 24 lenders supplying the financing. Baner shelled out $16 million of his money to complete Versailles.
In the two years since the project was completed, home sales have been slowed to a crawl and Baner had a hard time paying back the loans.
“This was my dream. I wanted it to be my legacy,” said Baner, who is president of Baner Financial Interest out of San Francisco.”
I wonder how much of the $16MM of his own money was actually extended leverage on properties like this one on Clay.
It’s a bad time for that neighborhood as the one of the houses “across the block” on the Washington St. side has also been scheduled to be sold on the Van Ness steps, but the auction keeps getting postponed.
Happy Renter wrote:
> It looks like this guy knows what he is
> doing and seems to have connections to a
> few Real Estate Trusts:
> Trophy Properties Xv LLC
I wonder if he invested with the Lembis (Walt also liked Ferraris) in any of their “Trophy Property” (see the link below) deals?
http://apartmentlawsuit.com/entities
Wow. This makes me want to finally attend one of those “Rich Dad/Poor Dad” seminars. Good-bye W-2!!
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/1891493160.html
Is he trying to rent this out now instead?
If that house on Craigslist is indeed the same house,(same clocks and all) then it has suddenly “grown” to 3500 sq feet. The plot thickens….
Deposit would be almost $18k right? This guy just can’t stop trying to screw people…
$30k rent for a week may mean it’s cheaper to own in this case.
J wrote:
If you were game and had the first month’s rent and deposit to lose, you could go into it knowing that the trustee sale is imminent, pay the first months rent and security deposit, sign the lease and move in.
Since we are all familiar with the concept of so-called strategic default, you could try a gambit of “strategic unlawful detainer”, and stop paying the rent after the trustee sale. The leaseholder (the current owner) would no longer have the house, so what’s he going to do to you? Sue you for breech of contract?
The bank or noteholder is probably going to try and turn the property around and sell it, a process which would take months if not years, during which you’ll be living rent free. And when the new owner finally gets their act together and attempts to get you out of the house, you can try delaying tactics using your signed lease. What are they going to do, get the old owner they foreclosed on to testify that you aren’t paying the rent? The bank isn’t going to want to go through discovery, right? So they’ll probably pay you to move out.
I’m obviously not a lawyer so there are probably holes in the above plan, but it seems someone with a mischievous personality and some energy could have all kinds of fun with this, especially if they really want to live in this house in that neighborhood.
Not quite. At the trustee sale, you would be responsible for paying the next month’s rent to the bank, not the former owner.
If you don’t pay them, they can evict you.
30k in a week? That’s nice. Downpayment on a Ferrari?
The pics on the Craigslist ad were done at night. There are better ways to advertise an 11,995/month rental.
This looks improvised. Is this even legit?
The listing agent is definitely legit. She lists stuff all the time but tends to handle higher end rentals. I know people that have rented using her.
What adds another layer of intrigue is that the way this particular listing agent often works is that she takes her commission from the *renter* rather than the *owner* of the property. She’s up front about it, but it’s still a hefty fee to pay and only makes sense for the renter if they think they’re going to be in that apartment for a long time.
So aside from the $30k mentioned above – the renter might actually be paying an additional fee on top of that if they’re paying the agent’s commission as well.
The short sale “list price” for 3346 Clay has been reduced from $2,895,000 to $2,750,000.
In other words, he didn’t even knock a Ferrari California of the price. (MSRP: $192K)
The short sale “list price” for 3346 Clay has just been reduced another $151,000, now asking $2,599,000.
Once again, 3346 Clay was refinanced in 2006 with a $2,800,000 adjustable rate first mortgage, a second for $1,188,024 was added in October 2008. And the Notice of Trustee sale lists $3,138,115 in principal, interest and fees outstanding on the first note alone.
See: The Missing Links (Or Rather Notes) for 3346 Clay.
Sort of gives new perspective to “time is of the essence”.
Okay, now we’re talking. That’s more than a 2009 Ferrari F430 Scuderia (MSRP $282K) off the original short sale price, but still less than a 2009 612 Scaglietti ($313K) and less than a 2009 599 ($320K). With some ambition, we might be able to hit a $383K 2011 699 GTO, or $2.512M.
This is a truly incredible house. The bank(s) determined it was worth almost $3.988M in 2008. That’s more than a mill in “instant equity” if you buy it today.
At least $3.188M of that almost $4 million is recourse debt (if not all of it), so maybe the bank(s) can attach a Ferrari or two.
In Escrow
Closed @ $2.120. Someone got a great deal on this place $704 psf. This comp is going to haunt.
[Editor’s Note: 3346 Clay Closes For Less Than Half Of What Was Owed.]